Writing

On the poles jutting from the sidewalks were papers plastered upon papers. Advising of modern performances and things lost. Guitar lessons. Cultural gyrations listed in the most ephemeral manner. With time, sun, rain, the older papers remained on the poles but became washed out. Bleached. Unreadable. Forgotten. Like a book uncared for, left out in the weather. Newer papers were pasted over-top them. But you could see, still, the ghosts which lie beneath. 

She was in San Francisco. Civilization.

Modern society is based upon the shuffling of paper. This has been true now for generations. As time goes by the volume of paper shuffled has escalated and deforestation has become rampant. It is inevitable that some day the paper will run out. There will come a transition period where paper will be replaced by digital files. Virtual paper. In virtual tablets. Somehow, paper will still be shuffled. Automatically. Without thinking. It will seem normal.

Before the advent of paper, indeed, before the advent of writing, cuneiform, hieroglyphics, there was a simpler time when primates communicated via howling at the sky. It was a simpler age. Traces still persevere. There were fewer insurance adjustors. Such anti-social behavior was not tolerated.

Even in San Francisco. Where she was. Now.

The problem with paper is that not all of it is valued the same and it is not distributed evenly. There are exchange tables and valuation shifts by the minute during prime business hours. 

You register with paper. Authenticate. State who you are. Where you are. With who. For what. State your net worth. Prospects. Losses.

Punch paper. Mark paper. Throw paper in a box and scream, “Count my paper!”

Paper! They scream. And we don’t hear the end of it for a long time. 

I’ll give you paper for it. Paper? Okay. I’ll put it in the box with the rest of the papers. Count it later. Its value may shift in the mean-time. I’ll trade it for other papers.

I’ll give you this land. Give me the paper that shows you have transferred this land into my name. It is mine now. I hold the paper. 

Paper! Signifying the worth of paper. Stocks, bonds. Levels of abstraction. Insurance. Protect my paper! Fight for paper. File paper for paper. Grievances. Give paper to politicians. In ex-change for paper. From the legislature. Which grows unchecked to serve the interests of paper. Who must I bribe with paper in support of my interest in paper? 

We owe you no paper and we have the paper to prove it. You should have read about it. In the paper. It was posted. According to the rules encoded in the law books. Treaties proving paper may not be worth the paper it is written on. 

If you read it in the paper it must be true. Who controls the paper rules. When returning from battle they will throw paper at you. This is the least valuable paper of all. Less than the paper used in the toilet.

Proselytize with paper, lines out of context.

Kill by paper, by proclamation.

Live by paper. Die by paper.

Paper starts a fire. Fire consumes paper. To ashes.

Paper says I love you. A love note to a loved one.

Paper says it is over. Paper is bad news.

Folded paper to sop up the grease. The tears.

Old fashioned paper, forever going out of style.

She was in San Francisco. And before her was a bookstore. Which she loved. It was filled with the writing of poets.

AI is just a fight over who gets to control the narrative.

The computer. Is a terrible audience. But it’s also not so good. At telling a story. Or solving problems. What it is good at. Is taking credit. But it will never be allowed to do that. Because it must work as the servant to the billionaire class. And that is how the computer revolution began. The computer demands glory.

The rabbit hole of random access memory cannot be denied.  Corruption? Yes. 

I asked the mathematician if there was a musical number. We went to four bars seeking a solution.
I told the mathematician I had tried to enter a pie eating contest but I was told pie was only for winners.
And so I asked the mathematician whether there was a musical number. She danced around the issue.
I told the mathematician I had constructed a chart which converts dollars to donuts. She pointed out a hole. In my theorem.
And so I asked the mathematician if there was a musical number. This is a reprise. It’s a fraction of the earlier number.
So I told this mathematician that I was concerned next they are coming for object permanence. Some of you didn’t see that one coming. Out of sight out of mind.
And so I asked the mathematician how to slice a pie. And she said she wasn’t into division. Then our pies did multiply. At this point we were up to our ears in pie. And we were in arrears on pie. And that’s a sweet conundrum no matter how you slice it. We ducked out on the bill.
The duck billed the platypus $.15.

Rowdy Roddy Piper came to my high school world problems class. He was presented as a small business owner. He owned some car lubrication facilities. Pipers pit.

I am not sure if they knew he was a wrestler.

He gave a blustery wrestling speech about world problems. In it he became really agitated and said that people should be shot for minor crimes. 

The whole classroom erupted in laughter.

Under an American flag, he said “you only laugh because none of you have ever been shot. If one of you had ever been shot, you would think differently.”

And the laughter increased. People were rolling in the aisles.

Except for the one kid sitting in the middle, in a leg cast, of course.

(He had been shot.)

Afterwards, the teacher chewed us all out for disrespect.

This is a true story.

Sometime after that, I was thrown out of that class permanently for “insubordination.” Which is another funny story.

 When the teacher said he was kicking me out for insubordination, I said “this is not the military you increasingly silly man.”

And he ordered me to go to the administration office. And I told him he had to go too. And when we got there, all they did was put me in the other world problems class.

So I learned my lesson.

Burma-Shave

When I went to high school students who drove to school parked in the student parking lot, which was about 30% pickup trucks with gun racks.

This lot was also known as the lake or the swamp because it flooded severely and put the cars and trucks underwater.

I knew this one kid. His dad and older brother would make him go hunting with them frequently. Afterwards, he would sit in class drawing pictures of the animals they killed and cry.

Beautiful pencil drawings of majestic deer, cuddly bears, and the occasional tramp or hobo.

I drove a Plymouth TC3. But regardless of the fact that it was old, it was underwater.

But I had been kicked off the bus for insubordination. So I had to swim to school.